Church of the Holy City

The Virgin Will Be with Child

The Virgin Will Be with Child
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
December 19, 2010

Isaiah 7:10-16 Matthew 1:18-25 Psalm 80

This morning’s readings emphasize women, specifically Mary. The Isaiah passage talks about the virgin who will be with child. It is foretold that this child will be called Immanuel. Immanuel in Hebrew means “God with us.” The passage from Matthew talks about Mary specifically, who is carrying our savior, God with us, Jesus Christ.
It is fitting and proper for us to dwell on the place of women in Christianity. When they play a pivotal role in the narratives, as is the case this morning, we need to pay especial consideration to their place. Unfortunately, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, men tend to dominate the narratives and theology. This is especially the case in Protestant Christianity, where the role of Mary is considerably reduced from her role in Catholicism.
Mary plays a unique role in the Christmas story. She is the one who carries our Lord in her womb and gives birth to the Savior of humanity. And yet, Mary is in a vulnerable place in Jewish society–as vulnerable as Jesus Himself was as the baby born of Mary. Matthew shows us how the fate of women is beholden to the power of men. At the very beginning of the story of Jesus’ birth, Joseph is about to divorce Mary. Without a husband, women in the Jewish world were helpless, since men controlled all the money, land, and power. So even the mother of our Lord was subject to the will of her husband. And in our society today, in many cases, women are still victims to the will of their mates. When couples separate, most often it is the woman who is left to care for the children, and in too many cases without help from the father.
Fortunately in the Christmas story, an angel of God announces to Joseph that Jesus was conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. And this miraculous conception makes Joseph’s marriage holy and indeed, ordained by God. Even in ordinary human marriages and ordinary human births, we are confronted by a miracle. When an egg is fertilized a miraculous process is initiated by which a full human being is formed out of the mother’s own body. The baby is nurtured by the mother’s food. The mother’s blood flows through the baby’s veins. The baby grows and matures into a complete person who is completely distinct from its mother. And then when the baby is delivered from the mother’s womb, it is as if a part of the woman has left her body. Medical science still cannot discern how this gestation takes place. We don’t know how a cell becomes a heart, or the lungs, or a kidney, or a brain. This is a miracle that God oversees and that leaves us in wonder.
The attachment that a mother has for her child is perhaps the strongest loving attachment known to the human race. And there are references scattered throughout the Gospels to the role that Mary played in the life of Jesus. We find in Mary those same qualities that define mothers today, and that have defined mothers throughout the ages. Again and again, we find that it is Mary who cares most for her child, and who knows Him best. When Jesus stays behind in the temple talking with wise rabbis, and the holy family notices Him missing, it is Mary who worries about Jesus. She says, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you” (Luke 2:48). Then, when Jesus becomes an adult, knowing His powers, it is Mary who urges Jesus to perform His first miracle. This is the story of the marriage feast. They run out of wine and Mary asks Jesus to help out. Like a typical young adult, Jesus tries to get out of it, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come” (John 2:4). Like a typical mother, Mary ignores Jesus’ protestations and tells the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” They bring jars of water to Jesus, who then turns the water into wine, performing His first miracle urged on by His mother. And finally at the end of Jesus’ ministry, His mother stood by her son at the cross. In every way, we see a mother’s love exemplified in Mary. Although a holy woman, chosen by God to bring salvation into the world, Mary was still a mother, and lived and loved as mother do today and have through the ages.
Telescoping back a little, we can consider another bond of love. I mean the holy family. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus form an ideal image of Christian family. It is an ideal family, and an ideal I fear we are losing to a very great extent today. In Matthew’s birth story, we are told that Jesus will be the Savior of humanity. I have just said that we are losing the ideal of the Christian family, and here, society needs so much to recognize its need for a savior. Unfortunately, I have noticed that those most in need of salvation are the same people who seem self-content and feel that they need no savior. Yet the brokenness we see in family life today calls out for salvation and healing. Many couples today have split up, leaving their children with family life that lacks wholeness. For whole personality development, children need strong male and female role models. Yet in so many households today, we find single parents–which almost always means single mother households. This situation leaves the mother with the burden of working, housekeeping, and childrearing all on her own. The amount of quality time that a mother can devote to her child is being squeezed out by the demands of life in this broken world. And there are even worse scenarios to consider. As Sister Lucinda can tell us, many households are broken and scarred by domestic violence. Not only are relationships strained, but actually abusive and violent to the extent that flight is the only solution. I will give Sister Lucinda time to speak to this situation, if that is her inclination. Our families are very much in need of salvation. The brokenness of our fallen world is most painfully felt in the abusive households that our society has generated. As in the days of Christ, we are still a culture very much in need of healing. Very much in need of a Savior.
There is a final relationship that this morning’s readings bring up. We have considered the relationship between mother and child. We have considered the relationship between members of a family. We now turn to our relationship with God. For ultimately, the Bible readings for this morning are about the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior. This suggests the mystical relationship of the spiritual marriage. The relationship between Christ and the community of believers is compared to a mystical marriage in many places in the Bible. In several places in the Gospels, Jesus says things like, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast when he is with them?” (Mark 2:19). Or in Paul we find,
He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds it and cares for it, just as Christ does the church–for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:28-32).
And in Revelation we are all invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb, “Then the angel said to me, ‘Write; “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”‘” (Rev. 19:9).
Swedenborg describes God as infinite love and infinite wisdom. God enters our minds and hearts when we acquire wisdom and let God’s love into our hearts. When the union of love and wisdom that God is, enters us as the finite love and wisdom we acquire, then we are married to God. God is in us and we are in God. This is spiritual marriage. And everything we have considered above depends on this spiritual marriage. A mother filled with God’s love and wisdom cares for her child and raises him or her to be a good citizen and spiritual individual. A couple who is filled with God’s love and wisdom knows how to care for each other’s needs and knows how to show love in healthy ways. And every person finally has a spiritual loving relationship with God, which is the primary and most essential relationship of all. Jesus came into the world to bring a fallen world back to God. And with Christ’s incarnation, the world was given a new way to come to God through the person of Jesus Christ. This love relationship is eternal. This love relationship lasts beyond the grave. And this love relationship brings healing to a broken world. This is the ultimate significance of that mother’s child, who came into this world 2,000 years ago.